


love isn't everything.

by nanaisms (sanhascroissant)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Falling In Love, First Love, Getting Together except they dont. they dont get together, Hurt No Comfort, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Moving On, Non-Linear Narrative, Pining, Sad Ending, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, but like its mad vague, i am gay and sad come be gay and sad with me, i am in my feelings so this is projection city
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26815378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanhascroissant/pseuds/nanaisms
Summary: (I love you.)A message typed, but never sent.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Na Jaemin
Comments: 31
Kudos: 58





	love isn't everything.

_ "Even after you ruined me for any other, _

_ I cannot regret you. _

_ Even as I cleave the flesh of wanting from bone,  _

_ I hope the night sky is pretty _

_ wherever you are." _

_ — Sasha M. George _

Mark and Jaemin ended quietly — they had never really been anything to begin with.  
  


* * *

  
It was on one of his rare visits to Seoul, one of the few times they had all gathered together, that he told them.

“I have a girlfriend.”

The sound was sucked out of the room, and for a long moment, Jaemin couldn’t think of anything to say. Luckily, Renjun was already sitting up, one eyebrow raised, bottle of soju hanging loosely from his hand. 

“No shit? Why didn’t you ever say something?”

“It’s nothing really serious.” Mark shrugged and took another sip of his own bottle, and god, Jaemin could feel Jeno’s eyes on him, heavy with concern. “My parents set it up, you know.”

“Well, then it is serious,” Donghyuck said. His eyes were darting from Mark to Jaemin, and fuck, Jaemin didn’t know he’d been obvious enough for Donghyuck to catch on. 

“I guess.” Mark looked away, out the window and over the view of Seoul city skyline from Jaemin’s apartment. He blinked, turning back to them. “Her name is Mina.”  
  


* * *

  
It started in middle school, but Jaemin didn’t realize it until many years later. Mark played guitar and he wanted Jaemin to sing with him in the talent show.

“I heard from Renjun that you’re really good,” he said in that painfully sincere voice of his. “And Renjun’s amazing, so I trust his word.”

“I’m really not much of a singer,” Jaemin said. “I’m better at piano.”

“That works,” Mark said, smiling. “I’m better at guitar, anyway. We can play together.”

In the end, they did, and they roped Donghyuck into singing for them. Jaemin looked across at Mark on the other side of the stage, his glasses slipping off the end of his nose as he strummed, and thought that maybe they could be friends.  
  


* * *

  
“Do you think there’s a God out there, somewhere?” Jaemin asked.

Mark hummed, dragging his legs through the water. “Yeah.”

“How do you know?” Jaemin pressed. Mark shrugged. 

“I dunno. I just always have. I chat with him sometimes.”

The river rushed on, and Jaemin didn’t really get it. They came here to the river, sometimes, when they wanted to talk. It was their thing.

“I don’t really get it,” he admitted. Mark hummed his understanding.

“That’s okay,” he said. He smiled, soft, and the light from the sunset glowed golden on his skin. “I believe it, one hundred percent, but I don’t really get it either.”

Jaemin thought, in that moment, that if God was real, she brought him and Mark Lee together for a reason.

Looking back on it now, it’s almost funny. There was never any reason.  
  


* * *

  
The funny thing about it was that it wasn’t the first time that Mark had told them he had a girlfriend. But somehow, deep down, Jaemin knew for sure that it would be the last.

“She’s from our rival company,” Mark said, and yeah, that sealed the deal. 

Jaemin hummed, and his hands tightened around the coffee cup in front of him. “Do you think you could love her?”

Mark looked up at him, surprised. His eyes shone behind his glasses. “You don’t think I love her already? We’re dating.”

Jaemin gave him a look. “Don’t play dumb with me, Mark Lee. I’ve known you and your family for too long.”

He slumped over. He sighed, looked down, away from Jaemin. Jaemin stared at the wall over Mark’s shoulder, watched the dust particles swirl through a stray sunbeam, and wished he was anywhere else. His heart felt tight in his chest. 

“Maybe,” Mark said finally. Jaemin nodded. “Do you think it’s enough?”

Jaemin smiled, sad. “You know that it has to be.”  
  


* * *

  
Love isn’t everything.

Jaemin knows that intimately. He’s told himself that he would never be foolish in the face of love, that he would be calm, be understanding. He wouldn’t lose his head over a boy or a girl. Love, as Na Jaemin knew it, was meant to be steady. The meeting of two minds.

Love was not all-consuming. It was not burning or urgent or unforgiving. Love, _true_ love, the kind that lasts, was slow and took more than passion. 

He fell in love with Mark Lee when he was fifteen. 

It was everything that he’d expected it to be — slow and steady, something shy and sweet that Jaemin didn’t know quite what to do with. He loved to hear Mark sing, he loved his passion for music, he loved his random animal facts, his faith in a God he could not see or hear. He loved the way that Mark was friends with everyone, the way he smiled and laughed shyly with his friends, the kindness that oozed from his pores everywhere he went, the dedication he had for his family.

He never planned for it, and he never planned to do anything about it. Mark Lee was one of his best friends, and that came before everything else, including his feelings.

Love isn’t everything. 

Part of Jaemin wishes that it was.  
  


* * *

  
Mark Lee was rich, but this wasn't exactly something Jaemin realized at first. 

“What the fuck?”

“Is it too much?” Mark bit his lip nervously. 

“It’s just… how are you _here?”_

When Mark Lee moved to Busan when he was twenty one and Jaemin was twenty, he had assumed that was the end of it. Sure, they texted, but they mostly exchanged pleasantries. It was more contact than Renjun and Jeno, even _Donghyuck,_ had with Mark these days. 

Despite everything, Jaemin was still invested in not letting go. 

“You said you were feeling down,” Mark said, like that explained anything. 

“I… So what, you flew here? For _me?”_

“Why not?” He looked genuinely confused, like he couldn’t understand Jaemin’s bewilderment, like a flight across the country was nothing. 

A quick Naver search later that night, after Mark had gone and Jaemin lay alone in his room, proved that for Mark Lee, money really was nothing. 

It was just one of the many, many things that he had never known about him.

He flew to Seoul on a whim for nothing but Jaemin. And he did it again, and again, and again. In the hours between midnight and morning, Jaemin’s foolish heart beat with hope. 

_He flew here for me._

It never meant anything. By then, he’d already begun dating Mina.  
  


* * *

  
A few months prior, Jeno had texted him saying, _You’re over him, right?_

He had texted back quickly. _Of course._

He had lied.

_We broke up._

A text message sent at three am to a recipient who had sworn he’d moved on. 

_Do you want to call?_

_Not right now… is it bad that I'm not that upset?_

_Nothing you’re feeling could be bad, Mark._

_(I love you.)_ A message typed, but never sent.  
  
  


* * *

  
Mina was not Mark’s first girlfriend. Not by a long shot. 

There was Nayoung, and Yerim, and Jennie, and Seungwan. Jaemin remembered them all.

Remembered how he’d promised himself to move on. Remembered how he’d believed it deep down that he had, until Mark broke up with them and Jaemin found himself thinking of Mark every time a love song played on the radio. 

It was pathetic, but Jaemin still picked up the phone for him every single time. This time was no different. He would do anything for Mark Lee.

“Will you be my best man?”

“Of course.”

_Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.  
  
_

* * *

  
Na Jaemin, age twenty-two, found himself at his best friend’s wedding.

Best friend seemed too weak a title, but to call Mark Lee the love of Jaemin’s life… well, he was certainly hoping not. 

There would be no breakup text this time. There was no going back on this promise. Jaemin knew that, and he wished his heart would get the memo.

They wore white for Mark’s Christian wedding, but all that Jaemin could think as he watched Mina slip a silver ring onto Mark’s finger, lips painted blood red as she did, was that in some cultures, white was the color of mourning. 

“You should get drunk,” Donghyuck said later, voice dripping with sympathy as they watched Mark’s first dance from the sidelines. Jaemin considered it for half of a second, mind swirling with thoughts of Mark Lee, his eyes, his hands, his smile. He shook his head.

“No,” he said, smiling wryly. “I think that would be an awful idea.”

Staying sober was the right choice. After all, Jaemin swore that he would never lose his head over love. 

It hurt. It hurt _so goddamn much._ But this too shall pass, Jaemin reminded himself, and he shut his eyes.  
  


* * *

  
Mark Lee and Na Jaemin talked for the last time on a warm spring day nine months after Mark Lee’s wedding. Nothing particularly special happened. Jaemin texted Mark asking after him and Mina, and Mark forgot to respond.

The end was quiet, as slow as the beginning. Careless. 

Mark just forgot. 

Jaemin never could, and really, that was just one more reason not to text Mark again, to not bother berating him for ignoring his texts. 

At the end of it all, Jaemin was tired. He let him go.

Love isn’t everything.  
  


* * *

_  
Do you believe in soulmates?_

_No, I can’t._

_What? Why not?_

_If there’s only one person out there for me, I have a feeling that I know who it is. And if I’m right, then I’m screwed._

_You’re so pessimistic, Jaemin, damn._

_I’m not! Just realistic._

_You should let loose more often. Put yourself out there, you know?_

_I’m pretty sure I missed my chance on this one, Mark hyung._

_It’s never too late. They could still love you back._

_They can’t. But maybe, assuming soulmates aren’t real, I can find someone else. See, I can be optimistic._

_Haha, okay. I take it back. You’ll find someone Jaemin. After all, who wouldn’t fall in love with you?_

Jaemin smiled wryly. 

_Who, indeed._

**Author's Note:**

> i am in my feelings tonight friends... leave me some things as consolation if you feel like it <3
> 
> thank u all for reading
> 
> much love as always,  
> robin


End file.
